


Hypnagogia

by scararts (ScarlettArbuckle), ScarlettArbuckle



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Depression, HP: Epilogue Compliant, Injury Recovery, M/M, POV Severus Snape, Severus Snape Lives, Slow To Update
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-22
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-02-05 11:26:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12793575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarlettArbuckle/pseuds/scararts, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarlettArbuckle/pseuds/ScarlettArbuckle
Summary: One moment he's bleeding out on the floor of the Shrieking Shack, staring into Harry’s eyes - the next he's alive, nearly 20 years in the future.It's hard enough to wake up in a world that sees him as some kind of blasted hero (or to wake up at all, for that matter) but then he has the dreams to contend with - dreams or memories?A/N: Rating and tags will change as events happen, this is only vaguely planned out at this time. Comments/Suggestions appreciated!





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[ Do you like any of the ideas in this story? Want to use anything in your own story or prompt? Feel free to use anything you find here, just show me what you make! I'll probably be very slow to update, so if anything inspires you and you wrote it yourself it would be so cool to see it!! ]]

In the final years of his life, Severus Snape thought about the nature of death with astounding regularity. He supposed it was only natural, when expecting to die any moment, to ponder the nature of oblivion. He would die either as a spy, caught in his work and punished in the cruel, indescribably painful way that only the Dark Lord could fathom, or he would die in punishment for his many crimes, the deserving victim of a Dementor’s Kiss, or at the hands of someone whose anger he must deserve. It was foolish, to think he would survive the second wizarding war; even more so to think he  _ deserved _ to.

Many believed in an afterlife where, in sunny meadows and endless sunshine, you rejoined those who loved you, arm in arm, where you would spend eternity together in happy bliss. Pah! Even if such a plane existed, there would be no one there to spend his afterlife with, so did that mean he would sit in never ending purgatory, aware of the happiness he could have had, if only he’d ever given someone a reason to love him? In that case, he may as well be doomed to one of the many Muggle hells, where he would be punished for the dark deeds of his life.

Death had to be nothingness. This need only be evidenced by the anxiety inherent in thinking, ‘just what is it like to be dead? To think, to see, to be nothing?’ Albus reasoned that death was like an endless sleep, and yet this was inherently preposterous, because a good, restful sleep conveyed a sense of time - a sense that if you closed your eyes you would awake hours later, rested and bodily soothed. Death must be more like a fitful sleep; ideas, stopping in the middle of a train of thought, without any idea when you’d finally succumbed. Waking, suddenly, knowing you had slept, but had no mental recollection of a dream, or of a concept of time, or rest. This must be death, then, only without waking, but then… 

And this was the death that Severus dreaded the most; the lead up of frenetic thoughts that would, ultimately, lead to a sudden sleep that never ended. The sudden lack of being, the lack of thought, of anything -  _ that _ was what terrified him. For as damned and shameful and undeserving as he was, he wanted to  _ live _ . 

Dying hurts. More than any Cruciatus ever had; not the bone rending, flesh searing agony of pain  _ everywhere _ , but the throbbing, sickening nausea, the terrifying coldness in his very depths. He’d always feared being struck in the back with a killing curse, thinking that nothing could be worse than believing, wholeheartedly, that you would live, before seeing that flash of green and not knowing it was over. Nothing could be worse, he’d wagered, than the way Lily died - fighting to the very last, only to fall, the life cut from you before you could even react. 

And yet dying like this is inexplicably worse. Collapsed on the cold, musty floor of an old building, on the very grounds he’d seen as a sanctuary for all of his life- he would die, completely and utterly alone. Severus Snape, the dingy bat of the Slytherin Dungeons, discarded in a heap of bones, the air hot and thick with the heady smell of blood. He feels chilled to the very marrow, despite the almost molten heat of his blood on his neck and against his hand, where he desperately tries to quell the bleeding. He even tastes it in his mouth, the bleeding of his gums as the venom spreads. 

He’s going to die for  _ nothing _ , and Potter will never know, Potter will--

And then he’s there. One moment Severus is alone, the next Potter appears, as if summoned. The vision is here to gloat on his death, to point out that it’s only what he deserves for killing his parents. But it’s the lack of reaction, the absence of any open animosity in the expressions warring across his face that convinces Severus that this is the  _ real  _ Harry Potter, not the nasty, whispering shade that Severus often concocted in his mind over the years. Severus drops his hand from his neck, grasping desperately at the boy’s cloak, taking no pleasure in the startled jolt that it shoots through him.

“Take… it…” It’s so hard to speak. Blood pools in the back of his throat, choking him. “Take… it…” He tries, again, almost fearing that Potter hasn’t heard him. But he listens - he takes the memories from him, his face pale. 

When the vial is full, the small burst of adrenaline keeping his fingers grasped in Potter’s cloak fades, and his fingers slacken, dropping. “Look… at me…” It’s a final plea, a final wish that he knows he has no right to ask. And yet Potter does, he leans just that bit closer, green eyes boring almost into Severus’ very soul.

He looks for Lily there; but he sees only Harry Potter. Harry, the boy who lost his parents too early. Harry, the boy who had his childhood stripped from him, utterly and thoroughly, by circumstance and Dumbledore’s orchestration - Harry, who he’d detested merely on the basis of being alive, when Lily was not, a living embodiment of his own betrayal, of his own selfishness and foolishness.

The man who was going to die because he would never, ever consider running away, like Severus did - who would die for the sake of ending this damned war, once and for all. In this moment, looking into Harry’s eyes, Severus felt, for the first time in twenty years, like he wasn’t alone.

Then he is gone.

The world went dark. The heartbeat, nearly deafening him, stopped - and in the eery silence that followed, a single thought lingered. ‘ _ Don’t let Him die. _ ’

* * *

His body had been cold, so cold - and yet, in the next instant, he was comfortably warm. He couldn’t move his arms, but this detail, which may have elicited panic and the urge to escape in his past life, is a distant concern. The complete and utter darkness of only a moment ago had lessened to a comfortable shadow behind his eyelids, and the smell of blood that had coated his nostrils only seconds ago was gone, replaced by the almost crisp, sterile smell of recently washed sheets.  With the greatest of efforts he cracked open his eyes.

Severus Snape was in a room. It was dark, cast in shadow, but not the pitch black he knew he should have been expecting - it wasn’t even dark enough to be night time. When he tried to strain his eyes to peer into that darkness, the nerves panged in complaint and he was forced to squint them closed against the sudden headache that pounded at his temples. He opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out is a soundless hiss of air - but this seemed to be enough.

A rustling from his left responded, and he was being propped up, an arm supporting his back. Trying to move his arm to bat the stranger away, Severus realized he still couldn’t move it - not even a twitch, but it isn’t lying limp beside him either. Instead, he became aware of the tickle of his fingertips against his own chin, and with a sudden rush of shame he realized that he’s been  _ swaddled _ , like a newborn - his arms bound loosely to his torso. 

Merlin,  _ is he a newborn?  _ Some cultures  believed in reincarnation after all-- For a harrowing moment, where he could almost imagine a chorus of mocking laughter in his own head, locked in his own mind and unable to verbalize beyond a strangled grunt, he fears this is truly the case. But then the man that had propped him up gave his shoulder a brief squeeze of support, and front of him a pretty blonde woman, around his age, bustled to his side, raising a glass to his lips. “Mr. Snape, please try to drink, if you can.” She instructed.

His tongue was thick and swollen in his mouth, but after a few moments where his lips moved uselessly, he was able to duck his head forward to drink. The potion was cold, but he nearly moaned in relief as it slid down his throat, soothing it like a balm. It was hard to even care that some of it had missed his mouth and, instead, soaked the hollow of his throat and shoulder, even in front of it. The shame would come later, he was sure.

The woman, however, seemed satisfied. She pulled the glass away, then nodded to the man holding him up, and moments later Severus was settled back down. However he wasn't  laying flat as he had initially thought, the bed is angled, allowing him to lay at a slight angle, half propped up and half lying. With a wave of her wand, the bed adjusted further, sitting him almost fully up. From here, he could see the man properly. He was, like the woman, around his age, with sandy blonde hair and warm eyes. He was fit, but had a roundness to his features that suggested an easy-going, merry nature - and a dusting of lighter hair at his temple denoted his age, where his face did not. He’d aged much more gracefully than Severus had, that much was clear. The man looked at him, eyebrows furrowed in thought, before looking at the woman, mouth raising into an easy smile. “Well - drinking almost on his own is a good sign. Do you want me to stay?” 

The woman hesitated, but ultimately shook her head, scooting a chair closer to Severus’ bedside. From here he could see that she was wearing an apron and slacks, her hair drawn back into a braided bun. She looked more like a Muggle nurse from his father’s old history books than a Healer, but he began to realize that that was exactly what she was; a Healer.

The room around him, as his senses began to return, was less of a room and more of a cubicle, cordoned off by thick curtains; sunlight peeked out from the the corners, but they did a good job of blocking the majority of it from where he lay. A table, was settled to his left, obscured by the man as he rose to stand, and there were chairs on either side of the bed, which looked overly comfortable and well used.

The man took one final look at him before ducking quickly from the erected ‘room’, where he must have remained close by because Severus could hear his footsteps stop after only a few meters. The length of a hallway, maybe, before he began to speak in hushed tones that Severus strained to hear.

The woman, however, soon caught his attention as she scooted close, holding a Muggle penlight in her hand. “Mr. Snape, I would… like to check your responses now.” She waited for a long moment, biting the edge of her lip in… what he could only describe as nervousness. Her eyes searched his face, as if looking for something there, but the look unnerved him, and he found himself leaning bodily away; his hip bumping into something that, he belatedly realized, were bars around his bed to prevent him from falling out of it.

She huffed, resigned, and tucked the penlight away, instead whisking out her wand and running a whole skew of diagnostic spells, waved in the general direction of his head, his neck, and even towards his feet. One whispered spell resulted in a painful prick at his foot, but the reaction seemed to please her, and she jotted something down in a notepad at her side. Finally, after what felt like forever, she seemed satisfied with the results of her test and once again sat, looking at him with a sort of wonder that left him growing more and more frustrated. Who the hell was she - where  _ was _ he? What WAS this?! 

“I know you have questions, Mr. Snape - and I’m so sorry. Hopefully in a few hours your throat will be strong enough for talking - that's the potion you just took, by the way.” She fidgeted, her hands tugging at the front of her apron nervously.

“You were injured very badly in the Battle of Hogwarts, suffering from a snake bite. Y’know, from Voldemort’s snake.”

The name brought a flinch from Severus, fear of the Taboo instantly making him leery, but she continued on, eyes softening somewhat in understanding. “Er - sorry, Professor. But the snake is dead - Neville killed it. You remember, Neville from your classes? … What am I on about, of course you do. … I hope. But Voldemort is dead too, it’s over.”

The war? Was she saying what he thought she was saying? Snape closed his eyes, aware of the woman continuing to talk, but unable to focus on her words anymore. The Dark Lord was dead. He had been vanquished - hopefully, this time, for good. The thought itself was… impossible. To him, just a moment ago the man had stared coldly down at him, red eyes uncaring as he watched his snake kill his ‘most loyal’ Death Eater. Even with Harry going to his death, who would be left that could best Voldemort in a duel? It was a long shot to start, but it had, somehow, been pulled off. And Neville Longbottom had somehow slay the beast that ‘killed’ him. If he'd heard such a thing even a few years ago he'd have had a good laugh over the prospect, but he couldn't deny that the Longbottom that had emerged under pressure in a Hogwarts run by Death Eaters was, certainly, a being capable of such a feat. Not that he would ever admit it out loud.

But what did that mean for him? Harry Potter was… dead… had gone to his death, had been a martyr just as he’d feared. His body went slack at the realization, and Severus had to fight to keep a pained noise from escaping his ruined throat. He’d failed Lily, so completely and utterly, and hadn’t even had the decency to die before the boy. He’d successfully guided all of the Potters to their demise, and yet… here he was. Wretched and Alive.

Only seconds ago he’d been silently begging for it, but now he regretted that last, selfish request. 

“-- they couldn’t use blood replenishing potions on you, because you couldn’t drink them, and the spell wouldn’t allow for the venom to be banished. They had to just let your body heal, naturally, and introduce the antivenom in doses that your slowed metabolism would accept - at least, that is how I understand it. Actually, whoever devised your treatment is, in my opinion, a  _ genius _ .”

And what was this woman on about? He couldn’t ingest potions, what spell? 

It was hard to keep track of the conversation, when he felt like flinging himself from the highest window he could find.

“Anyway - that’s why it took so long to wake you, sir. It wasn’t until a year ago that you would have been in stable enough condition, and it was agreed that you should have a bit more time, just to make sure waking you didn’t put you into shock.”

“What?” The noise that broke from his throat felt like it had shredded any healing that potion had done, and yet the word was wrenched from him before he could think. It came out slurred, thick and rasping with disuse, and startled the woman out of her monologue. She jumped to her feet, whisking her wand back to her hand and summoning someone from the hallway beyond. “Mr. Snape, please don’t speak - your throat--”

Not that he could again even when he tried. Instead, what came out at the second attempt was a disgustingly wet gurgle, and what tasted like blood in his throat. The woman winced and murmured a quick Anapneo, which allowed him to gasp in a wrecked breath again. “I’m so sorry - please don't panic-”

“Maybe I can try, Hannah?” The man reappeared, and beyond him Snape could see another few faces, which peered nervously through the flap until it closed behind him again. “You need rest - you’ve been on alert all week. He’s stable; we can handle this for you.”

She made a face, setting a hand obstinately on her hip. “But, Neville-”

But before she got a word in edgewise, the stranger grasped her gently by the arm and guided her to the corner of the room, whispering quiet instructions. She cast a look back at Snape, clearly reluctant, but after a few final murmurs, she nodded and all but fled past the partition.

The man sat in the seat she’d been in only moments before, leaning forward slightly with his arms propped against his legs.

But Severus could only focus on the new pieces of information, which circled tauntingly in his head. Hannah? Neville? Neville was a distinctive name, one that shouldn’t have belonged on the face of a man twice his age. There was no way-- no way that the man across from him was--

“Professor, I know you must remember me. I’m Neville Longbottom.” He man, who looked to be at least 40 said. 

Snape could only shake his head, mutely. No. There was no possible way--

“Today is October 31, 2017, sir. You took Draught of Living Death immediately after your injury to save your life, and a week ago you were given Wiggenweld potion to wake you up. Treating a severe snake bite is pretty time consuming, it turns out, when you’ve frozen all the functions of your body, sir.” Neville looked up at him, doing a good job at looking contrite for his blunt revelation.

No, this was wrong. He hadn’t had a chance to take any such potion, not when delivering his memories to Harry. And, besides that, he hadn’t even had any of the blasted draught on him at the time - how was he alive? 

“Right now you’re being quartered at Hogwarts in the medical ward where you’ve been for the past few years - oh, by the way, you’ve also been cleared of  _ most _ crimes from the war; the ones you weren’t cleared of you served house arrest for. ‘Involuntary manslaughter under duress’ and ‘involuntary participation in mayhem under duress’ I think that’s what they called it?”

There was no way this was real. Severus closed his eyes, tightly, willing himself back to the present. To… what? Death? But when he released a breath and finally opened his eyes, it was only to those sad, puppy eyes that Longbottom was throwing at him from his chair.

“I’m sorry. I know that’s a lot to handle so soon, Professor - but at least you’re alive. That’s more than some people can say.”

Was that a shot at him? In the past, Severus would have sneered at that, especially from  _ Longbottom _ of all people. But… now, it hit him like a physical blow, and as Longbottom sat before him in sympathetic silence he could only feel haunted by the oppressive weight of a hundreds of possible faces that were dead today, while he lived. At the fore was Harry. He wanted to ask, but if they were all alive it was a clear confirmation that what he feared has come to pass. Verbally confirming it would truly destroy him.

“You need rest, Professor. But we have charms to let us know when you wake up, alright?” Longbottom stood and Severus feared for a moment he'd try reach out and console him, but thankfully he thought better of it and quietly disappeared past the curtains, leaving Severus to his racing thoughts.

When he falls into a fitful sleep, he dreams.

* * *

_ A series of vignettes. _

_ He sits in his desk in the Headmaster’s office in Hogwarts. Albus sits across from him, his hands healthy and whole, smiling serenely, younger than Severus has ever seen him. His voice is warm, his eyes kind, without a trace of the sadness he’s shown for all of Severus’ life. _

_ He lays in the grass, the sun shining patchily through shaded tree limbs, the sunlight warm on his legs, the grass cool at his back. She lays beside him, young and beautiful, her voice soft as they recount memories of long ago and of now. She smirks, laughing at something he can’t remember, and he groans in embarrassment at her words, rolling in the grass and hiding his face away from her spying eyes. When he looks up there are others there, joking and cuffing him at the shoulder, and he feels his face flaming at their jokes; not in humiliation, but in easy going laughter. _

_ He rests beneath a tree, the Hogwarts lake laid out before him; three boys sit around him, smiling at him like they never did in life, bumping shoulders in camaraderie that feels natural, not forced or duplicitous. One clutches his sleeve, head bowed, lips moving  inaudibly, and yet he understands their words. In life, a path past their hatred seemed impossible, and yet here they joke like old friends.  _

_ He stands at a train station, feels eyes on him, and turns - sees he’s been watched. A man strides forward, reaches for him, grasps him by the arms and… _


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy crap, it's been almost a year? I am so sorry. I want to promise that updates will come fast, but I don't know for sure. If this idea seems interesting, then feel free to take the idea and use it in your own stories!!

Severus decided that he hated whoever it was that decided to wake him up on October 31. What made it worse to him was that it hadn’t been premeditated, if what the Longbottoms said was true and he had been administered Wiggenweld a week before - it was simply the universe laughing at his misfortune.

Some would see being returned to life as a gift, as some sort of blessing; a second shot at life, a chance to start new and redefine himself as a person. But how could he, when the date, the anniversary of the Potters’ death, only served to remind him of the man he’d been all his life; of the mistakes he’d made? Suspended animation for nearly twenty years didn’t mean he could start on a fresh foot.

However that seemed to be what the Longbottoms expected. They treated him like an unknown entity; like he wasn’t the man who had terrorized them for the duration of their school days, who’d allowed Neville’s torture in his seventh year (just yesterday for him), who’d been allies with the people who’d forced Hannah, a muggle born, out of her own school in fear. But, then again, could he really say that these strangers were the same as the children he’d once taught?

Hannah (nee Abbott) Longbottom, who had been a plump faced, pig-tailed twit in her childhood, had grown into a woman as stubborn as Madam Pomfrey was, no doubt inherited by virtue of her position as a matron at Hogwarts. She’d also inherited, from sources unknown, the tongue of a sailor; he could hear her beyond the curtains of his bed in the Hospital Wing, cursing at something in the dark.

Perhaps even more frustrating was the man that wore Longbottom’s face. Longbottom was, easily, one of the most infuriating students he’d ever had the displeasure of teaching, due to his seemingly constant ineptitude. In his early time at Hogwarts, the boy had reminded Snape of Pettigrew in his very demeanor; insecure to a fault, constantly following in the footsteps of Potter’s Trio, and betraying himself as a bundle of nerves at every opportunity. And yet in the final years of his schooling, Snape had been startled to note a marked change; under pressure, Longbottom had matured rapidly, and in the absence of Potter, he had become a figurehead of resistance that Snape had never expected. Which made it all the more difficult to try and reign in their revolution, and try and ensure they survived their time at Hogwarts until the ‘Golden Trio’ appeared, their mysterious ventures in the great unknown at Albus’ behest finished. It was simply… difficult to believe that these events, which had only just happened for him, were nothing but distant memories to them now.

It wasn’t strange to think that Longbottom, after twenty years, had grown into a man that was painfully confident in the way only a man comfortable in his own skin could be.

Whatever group of people had been anxiously awaiting his awakening (strange as the thought was) had quietly disbanded after he fell asleep, and in the following hours he was left to the Longbottoms’ care. Abbott was, at least, overly doting in a way that was somewhat professional; rewrapping the bandages around his neck every few hours, checking his vitals, and quietly explaining his condition to him, blessedly cognizant of the fact that Snape, being a Potions Master, would understand what it was she was doing. In a surprising move, she had even agreed to remove the bindings to his arms.

And always Longbottom stayed at the periphery. Perhaps he expected Snape to snap at Abbott, or to reject the care of a Healer abrasively, and was prepared to interfere on her behalf? That certainly seemed like something Snape would have done, but after the weighty truths he’d been presented just hours before, he found he simply didn’t have the energy. He didn’t even respond to their prying, their questions, or make a motion to acknowledge Abbot’s explanations. He simply remained settled in the bed, eyes closed, until roused, and even then he only moved as instructed. If anything, his cooperativeness seemed to concern Abbott more, if the prolonged, searching looks meant anything.

When he woke for, perhaps, the fourth time, it was early morning - light filtered under the fringes of the curtain, and after a few moments of clearing sleep from his mind, Abbott appeared, bearing a tray of what looked to be pumpkin soup and bread. “Headmistress McGonagall is here to see you, if you feel up to it sir.” She said by way of greeting.

Clearly she expected a response, so when he remained silent she eyed him, her expression unreadable as she slowly set the tray on the table beside him. She hesitated, her hand settled against the wood of the table, dragging her eyes over his still form. “You don’t have to see her, sir. You can say no - you’ve only just woke up, I can tell her you need rest-”

If he’d been one to shrug, Severus may have done so. Instead, he inhaled through his nose, pushing himself up by his elbows until he was sitting up in bed. He didn’t want to think about how unseemly he must look. It wasn’t as if there were many records of someone waking up from the draught after such a long period of time, at least not in modern history. He could only judge by his hands, which weren’t wrinkled and gnarled with age, that he must not look much older than when he’d ‘died’; but that had little bearing on possible damage from exposure for… twenty years.

He was still reluctant to speak, after the night before, so instead Severus composed himself as best he could, then nodded to Abbott, relieved that she understood it for the dismissal it was. She shook her head, then carefully pulled open the curtain that surrounded his bed, opening it to the rest of the hospital wing.

It… looked much the same as it always had. He wasn’t sure if that was soothing, or disconcerting.

With a final, long look, Abbott left his bedside, disappearing beyond where the curtains still blocked his view. Moments passed, then… a rustle of robes announced the approach of his guest.

Despite his attempts to distance himself from his emotions, Severus still found his heart hammering in guilty dread, and his hand wound briefly into the cloth of his blanket before he forced himself to relax once more. He… didn’t know what he expected, after seeing Abbott and Longbottom’s transformations. But somehow, it still felt like a physical blow to see Minerva, already aged in his memory, appear in the guise of an old woman.

Minerva had aged well, as many witches were wont to do - yet at 80 she still had shrunk sizably from when he’d last seen her. Her face was lined with grief, and her hair, which even at sixty had been a greying black, was now solidly a dark silver - bound up in its telltale bun.

Rather than taking up residence in a chair, however, the headmistress stood beside his bedside, reaching and catching one of his hands before he could wrench them away. “Severus - dear Severus, I am so sorry I ever doubted you.” The words practically burst forth from her without preamble, leaving him stunned into silence. He must have been gaping like a fool, if the small twitch of her lips meant anything, but she continued on. “I should have known to trust Albus. He knew you were his man, through thick and thin; there was simply no way you would--” Here, she seemed unable to continue, her voice choking on emotion.

“Don’t be foolish - the intent was to fool everyone. What point would there be if you saw right through it.” He shot back, able to speak now that the potion had done its work, though his voice was still rough, catching against his throat with a rasp that made him flinch. The words were meant to come out sharp, accusing - instead he felt much like a deflated youngster, apologizing for bad behavior.

Minerva wasn’t pleased, however. She pinched her lips together, her eyes flashing to his own. The expression was so painfully familiar on the changed face, that he dropped his eyes away, finding the curtains still hanging to his left infinitely more interesting. “Severus, you could have died - might as well have gone to your grave, with the world thinking you were a monster. Let an old woman apologize for misjudging you. Please.”

He didn’t have the heart to point out that it wouldn’t have mattered to him what anyone thought of him, if he was dead.

What bothered him more was the repeated idea that he was some sort of hero, now that he was alive. It made his hackles rise, belly roiling in disgust at the misguided notion. “Fine. I accept your apology.” He ground out, past the revulsion building in him. He could feel the tension in every muscle, and clearly she could as well, judging by prolonged silence that stretched, torturously, to his right. She smoothed her hand, wrinkled and cold, over his own, then finally moved to sit. “I know it’s a big change, waking up - now of all times. If only we could have woken you sooner...”

“I’m to understand the snake is to blame for that.”

“The draught you made was perfect. Any less so and the venom would have killed you before it took effect.” Minerva looked a bit green, out of the corner of his eyes, to even speak about it.. Again, there was that belief that he had crafted the potion, and had saved his own life with it - which certainly rose a valid point - if he didn’t, who could have made one strong enough to pull this off?

He almost wished he could convince himself that he’d done the impossible, but he’d never been a man of fancy. He’d honestly not expected to be turned on so suddenly, not in the midst of the battle; and even if he had, he’d have expected to be killed instantly by curse, not by being mauled by a beast. And, even then, why would he take the draught when he knew there was no one in the world who would not stumble across his body, and decide to exterminate him on the spot? The other Death Eaters resented his rise to the Dark Lord’s side, given the common knowledge that he was a half-blood, and if the Light somehow won, there was no way he wouldn’t be imprisoned or administered a Dementor’s Kiss as retribution. So why bother going through with preserving himself? He’d given his memories to Potter, and that was his final task.

...Once again, the thought of Potter caught him, his stomach twisting. None of this made any sense; why he’d been kept alive, why Minerva was here, apologizing, when he’d escorted so many to their deaths. He wanted to ask her, but found himself choking on the words. When he finally looked back at her, she was watching him as well, her expression so kind he wanted to scream at her. “It was a risky move, though. If Potter hadn’t gone back to find you after the battle, we may never have known you were alive-”

All thoughts ground to a halt. Severus, who had been half laying against the plump pillows, scrambled to sit up fully, eyes snapping to Minerva in disbelief. “After the battle?”

The witch jumped slightly at his sudden panic, half rising from her chair as if to soothe him, a confused look on her face. Then, understanding lit her eyes, and she smiled in relief, settling back down again. “That’s right - with what Albus had told you, you wouldn’t have… Severus, he’s alive.”

It’s a revelation, and yet also echoes; the feeling of having been here before, on the cusp of panic. ‘ _He’s alive.’ A voice cries, joyous. There’s so much relief and happiness, it’s more than he can contain; it’s not just his, it’s theirs too._ ’

Alive. He sinks back again, looking down at his lap in shock. Beside him, he hears Minerva talking; describing the battle. Neville killing the snake; Harry’s body, carried by Hagrid, and then coming back to life and defeating Voldemort, for good. As she speaks, Severus can only feel the longing, the urge to seek Potter out, to see his face, to make sure he’s alive and --

And then he stops himself. Why the hell would he agree to come see him? Even if he did, what would there be to gain from it? This changes nothing; he’s still Snape, the man who harassed him for years. It’s still October 31, and that date still means something. Harry -- Potter is a alive, has been for twenty years, and that is enough; has to be enough.


End file.
